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Report: NHL picks likely owners for Vegas team

A major gamble, but it would make the NHL the first major sports league in North America to house a team in Nevada's glitzy gambling mecca. The league already has a foothold in Vegas, with the city hosting the league's award show over the last few years. (QMI Agency)

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The NHL has chosen the team of billionaire businessman William Foley and the Maloof family as the owners of a potential Las Vegas expansion team, the New York Post reported.

The league has not determined a timetable for expansion, but two western U.S. cities are expected to be selected for new franchises, according to reports.

One of those cities reportedly will be Las Vegas if approved by NHL owners. The franchise fee will be about $400 million, the newspaper reported.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Monday he met with a potential ownership group that has expressed interest in owning a team in Las Vegas. Daly also toured the site of the new $350 million, 20,000-seat arena being built by MGM Resorts and AEG that could potentially house the team.

Daly did not identify the group but sources said it was Foley and the Maloof family, former owners of the NBA Sacramento Kings. The Maloofs own several hotels in Las Vegas.

"I got a variety of different responses," Daly told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "The demographics of the market are pretty good in terms of average annual income. Las Vegas natives earn good salaries, good livings. I think they genuinely like sports. It's a nighttime city, so it would have to be uniquely scheduled in terms of focusing maybe on industry nights as opposed to your typical Thursday-Saturday nights where everybody would be working."

Asked by ESPN.com on Tuesday exactly what the purpose of his trip to Las Vegas was this past weekend, Daly said:

"It was to attend a Sports Lawyers Association Board of Directors meeting. The trip was not 'expansion related' at all. But since I was there, I took the opportunity to review progress on the arena. It was nothing more than that."

A $400 million franchise fee would be five times higher than the $80 million fee charged both the Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets in 2000, the last time the league expanded.

"Clearly we think that for a Las Vegas market to support a professional sports franchise, you need the support of the locals," Daly told the Star Tribune. "What's difficult on making a call on Vegas is it's such a unique market. It's really hard to know. The owners are going to have to be satisfied that the prospects of putting a franchise there are good and the fundamentals are solid."